FIRST STEPS.
“Oh, Arabella!—mademoiselle!” exclaimed Louisa on the following day, as
she entered the school-room at a later hour than usual, “I have been so
much diverted—I have been enjoying such a rare treat!” and she threw
herself into an arm-chair, and gave way to a burst of merriment.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” inquired the governess.
“I have seen Mrs. Effingham’s trousseau!” cried Louisa. Arabella looked
up from her drawing, and the exclamation of mademoiselle expressed her
curiosity on a subject which is supposed to be one of some interest to
the fair sex.
“I was passing the door of her dressing-room,” continued Louisa, “and as
it happened to be ajar she saw me, and called to me to come in.”
“As one school-girl might another,” said Arabella contemptuously.
“And there was the bride on her knees, herself unpacking her boxes!”
“She has not been accustomed to many servants,” observed Arabella, “and
finds it most convenient to wait upon herself.”
“And the trousseau de madame was magnifique, no doubt?” said
mademoiselle, with a little irony in her tone.
“Beautiful simplicity!” laughed Louisa; “I suppose that Mrs. Effingham
has met somewhere with the line, ‘Beauty when unadorned adorned the
most,’ and has adopted it for her motto!”
“Perhaps,” suggested mademoiselle, “the _marchande de modes_ at
Stoneby—”
“Lived in the time of King Pharamond,” interrupted Louisa; “or the bride
played _marchande de modes_ herself; or, what is more probable still,
employed her school-girls to run up her dresses, and make them true
charity pattern! There’s not a flounce or a fringe in the whole set,
from the white silk wedding-dress to the neat cotton-print.”
“Cotton-print! est-il possible!” exclaimed mademoiselle, lifting up her
hands.
“And the dressing-case—oh!” cried Louisa, bursting into fresh laughter
at the recollection.
“Quelque chose très-bizarre—very extraordinary!”
“Ordinary, certainly, without the extra! Brushes, combs, all enclosed in
a simple _bag_, ingeniously made, with many pockets big and little,
quite a curiosity of art;—I believe it was one of her wedding presents!”
Arabella and mademoiselle joined in the mirth which this idea inspired.
“I should like to have seen _les cadeaux_,” observed the latter.
“I saw everything—all her treasures,” cried Louisa; “I have a correct
inventory of them in my head. The diamond ring which Mrs. Effingham
wears is papa’s gift; so is the bracelet, and his miniature surrounded
with brilliants.”
“Oh! but her own family—her own friends, what did they give?” asked
mademoiselle.
“Her own family seems to consist of her old uncle, Captain Thistlewood,
who presented her with—let me see! an old-fashioned locket containing
her parents’ hair. It does not look like gold; I think that he must have
picked it up at a pawnbroker’s. Oh! and she has some distant lady
relations, who seem to enjoy a monopoly of making markers—red, pink, and
blue; and that she may have no lack of books to put them into, the
clergyman, Mr. Gray, has given her a Church-Service; and his wife—such a
present for a bridal! it would have been much more appropriate for a
funeral—Baxter’s ‘Saint’s Everlasting Rest’!”
“Anything else?” inquired Arabella with a sneer.
“The gem of the collection is to come. You should have seen Mrs.
Effingham unfolding it, and the look with which she surveyed it! A huge
patchwork table-cover all the colours of the rainbow. ‘My dear
school-girls’ present,’ said she, as tenderly as if each ugly patch had
been a love-token set in jewels!”
“I hope that she’s not going to display it in our drawing-room,”
exclaimed Arabella.
“I think that madame should wear it as a shawl—bring in a new _mode_,”
said Lafleur.
“I wish that I’d thought of recommending that!” exclaimed Louisa,
clapping her hands; “she looks so unsophisticated and ready to believe.
I’d lay anything that were we to tell her that the hoods of opera-cloaks
are worn expressly as pockets to hold bits of bread for distribution to
beggars, that such is the approved method of being charitable in London,
she would say, with one of her gentle smiles, ‘What an admirable plan!’
and adopt the fashion directly. I thought of passing something of the
kind upon her, but somehow I could not command my countenance when she
looked at me with her inquiring blue eyes!”
“I suspect she’s sharper than you think,” said Arabella shortly.
“Well, she is going to the milliner and dressmaker to-day—she saw the
necessity for that; and I’m going in the carriage with her, and Aunt
Selina also, I fancy.”
“I wonder what pleasure you can find!”
“Oh! it will be the rarest fun in the world! She is such a shy, timid
creature, I can see at a glance that she has an awe for my aunt, and is
afraid of the sound of her own voice when the earl’s daughter is
present; so what between Lady Selina, and chattering little Madame La
Voye, we’ll get Mrs. Effingham into such a whirlpool of fashion, we’ll
bewilder her so with our _nouveautes_, that she will order anything and
everything that we please, and come out into the world so gay that she
will not know herself when she looks in her glass!”
The visits to the fashionable dressmaker and milliner were accomplished
that afternoon under the auspices of Lady Selina, who, in according her
undesired presence, contrived to make Clemence very sensibly feel that
she was performing an act of condescension. If Clemence was ignorant of
the intricacies of the peerage, she was also entirely at fault in the
mysteries of _la mode_; she scarcely knew _moire antique_ and _point
d’Alençon_ even by name, and the jargon of French terms which flowed so
glibly from the tongue of Madame La Voye, would have been scarcely more
unintelligible to Mrs. Effingham if uttered in the Japanese language.
This and that rich article of attire, to be adorned in some
incomprehensible style, was recommended as absolutely indispensable, and
in a manner which left the shy young wife scarcely the option of
refusal. If knowledge be power, ignorance is weakness; and Clemence,
dazzled, confused, painfully anxious to please, and shrinking from
exposing herself to ridicule, suffered her own taste and inclination to
be overborne by those of her fashionable companions.
Clemence returned home with the disagreeable conviction that she had
been led into extravagance to an extent which she was unable to
calculate; for in the presence of Lady Selina she had not ventured to
ask the cost of anything. She felt that she had yielded with the
helplessness of a child to an influence which her judgment told her was
not an influence for good.
“How exceedingly weakly I have acted to-day!” such was the mortifying
reflection of Clemence as soon as she had leisure for thought. “I fear
that I have abused the generosity and confidence of my dear husband, and
spent more in selfish indulgence in one hour than should have sufficed
me for a year. True, my situation in life has been changed, and some
things were really necessary; but I was carried away like a feather on
the breeze, afraid to say what I liked or disliked, afraid to show that
I thought money of any value except as a means of gratifying caprice.
What a strange, new existence this is! I seem to be breathing quite a
different atmosphere—to have entered a world where ideas of right and
wrong, important and trivial, are utterly unlike those to which I have
been accustomed from my childhood. Except my beloved husband, there is
no one here to whom I could speak the feelings of my heart, believing
that they would be even understood. I wonder if, as I become experienced
in the ways of the world, I shall gradually become like those around
me—if I shall ever resemble Lady Selina!” A smile passed across
Clemence’s face as the idea first suggested itself to her mind; but it
almost instantly faded away, and was succeeded by an expression of
serious thought. “I fear that I am very unfit to meet the temptations of
this new scene. The world appears to me like a petrifying stream. Some
spirits, like my noble Vincent’s, can drink of it uninjured, and then
rise above it on the strong wings of reason and faith; but I fear that I
shall be like some weak spray, gradually losing all inward life, and
growing harder and colder as the waters flow by it! These two days have
shown me more of weakness and folly, yes, and vanity too, in my own
heart, than I was ever sensible of before. I have felt as much ashamed
of my ignorance of that which I have never had an opportunity of
knowing, as if I had been charged with a serious fault. I have been
tempted to equivocation, and have more than once assented with my lips,
or by my silence, to that which in my heart I denied. I have felt my
vanity gratified even by the silly flattery of one who probably
considers flattery as a part of her trade. If I am thus on first
entering these scenes, fresh from the instructions of my pious friends,
full of the earnest resolutions made before God in my home, what shall I
be when time may have weakened the remembrance of those instructions,
the strength of those resolutions? If I stumble at the very first step,
how shall I walk steadily and faithfully along a path which I foresee
will for me be full of snares? O my God, help me, for I am a weak,
infirm child! Let me not forget Thy warning, _Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world_. The difficulties which beset
me must make me more earnest in prayer, more diligent in
self-examination, more watchful over my deceitful heart!”
[Illustration:
MRS. EFFINGHAM.]
Clemence slowly paced her apartment, and wingèd thought earned her back
to her childhood’s home. “How true are the words which I once
heard,—Every new change in the course of our lives, like a bend in a
river, brings before us new difficulties, new duties, and new dangers,
and shows us our own characters in a new light! I have hitherto been
gently gliding with the tide; and if the banks sometimes appeared a
little flat and dull, there was nothing in outward circumstances to shut
out from me the light of Heaven. In seeking to please God, I best
pleased the dear ones who regarded me with such partial affection. My
duties accorded with my inclinations. But now,—my duties, what are
they?” Clemence paused for some minutes and reflected. “I must learn to
be able to say ‘No’—a painful task, from which my cowardice shrinks; I
must be content sometimes _not_ to please, and yet in indifferent
matters be as careful—even more careful than ever—not to give offence or
cause displeasure. I must exercise the grave duties of a housewife, nor
from indolence or timidity shift upon others the responsibilities which
God made mine when I became a wife. Mine own Vincent!”—her eye rested on
the miniature of her husband—“would that I were more qualified to make
his home what that home ought to be! But he will cheer and encourage me
in the attempt to do so; he will have indulgence on my ignorance; he
will be my support, my guide, my example; and he will teach me to become
more worthy to be his wife!”
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